Days Go By
by Hummingbird1759
Summary: The characters' lives go on after the Fall... sort of. Rated T for profanity, violence. No longer a one-shot!
1. Still a Whisper on My Lips

_A/N: This story was originally part of "Domestic Enemies" but wound up on the cutting room floor. I found it while I was re-editing that story and decided to post it. As always, I don't own these characters, Moffat/Gatiss and Conan Doyle do. Story named after the Dirty Vegas song "Days Go By."_

* * *

Sun shone through the windows of the upper bedroom of 221B Baker Street. John still slept there, despite the fact that no one had used the downstairs bedroom for months. Someday he should clean it out, but today he had something – or rather, some_one_ – else on his mind. That someone was currently dozing next to him with a delicate flush on her cheeks. _(I've been on three continents and never seen any woman as gorgeous as her.)_

The doctor stretched and lazily rolled over in bed, picked up his phone and then blinked in horror at what he saw.

**Calendar Alert: Work in 10 min**

_(How in the bleeding _fuck_ did I sleep through my alarm?)_ The doctor jumped out of bed and snatched the nearest clean scrubs. As he stumbled into them, he shook his girlfriend awake.

"Oi, Mary, get up! I'm late for work!"

Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of bed, got dressed, and the two of them dashed down the stairs. After seeing Mary into a cab, the blond man raced down the street and caught the Tube. When he arrived at the hospital, it seemed that all of his colleagues were staring at him with accusing eyes as he walked in. _(I deserve it for being this late.)_ The patients were giving him odd looks too, but he figured they were simply annoyed at having to wait.

During a lull in the activity, two of the nurses and a secretary were glancing at John and not-so-surreptitiously snickering. _(Right. Time to end this.) _Captain Watson straightened his spine, marched over to them and said coolly, "Ladies, would you care to share the joke with the rest of us?

The short nurse cleared her throat and gently said, "Er… Dr. Watson… perhaps you should look in a mirror."

_(What the hell does that mean?)_ John gave the trio a quizzical look. Grinning, the secretary fished a makeup mirror out of her desk and handed it to the doctor.

When the doctor saw the mark on his neck, his jaw dropped and he immediately turned a deep crimson.

"Fun evening, was it?" The short nurse said, and the women erupted in mirth.

* * *

Sunday mornings were usually quiet at the cemetery – most mourners didn't come by until the afternoon. And so it was that a blond ex-soldier had no fear of anyone eavesdropping while he finished telling the story of his date to his best friend's headstone.

"…and then one of the nurses told me to look in the mirror." John shook his head, chuckling. "Mary left an enormous love bite on my neck! The nurse and I tried covering it with makeup but the damned thing was so dark nothing would cover it. I wound up spending the whole day with my white coat collar turned up to hide it. You'd have given me no end of ribbing if you'd been there. I'm afraid I don't look cool with my coat collar turned up like you do - did. I look rather foolish, actually."

John raised his eyes as if expecting to see Sherlock hovering in the clouds. "God, I can't believe I actually admitted that you looked cool with your coat collar up."

The blond man smiled wanly as he continued. "Anyway, that's why I'm wearing a scarf and why I'm here a little earlier than usual this week. I'm meeting Mary for brunch. And why I brought flowers – for Mary! I know you don't care for them. I feel bad about dashing out on her like that yesterday, and I want her to know that I'm a gentleman."

Rolling his eyes, he said, "All right, yes, it's not just_ a_ scarf; it's _your_ scarf. And I think it looks good on me, thank you." _(And it still smells of you and when I wear it, I can almost pretend that you're here.)_

"I really think you might like her. Or at least, not hate her like you did the others. She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful, she's kind... I'm making you sick, aren't I?"

John's face sagged and he tried to fight off the sadness rising in his chest. "I still wish you were here to chase her off."

Blinking back tears, he sat silently for a moment as he always did when he'd finished telling Sherlock everything that happened each week. After all these months, he still wondered if one day he'd finish speaking and then Sherlock would appear with a pithy observation.

Greeted only by the wind, John stood up and touched the headstone. "See you next week."


	2. Feel It in My Fingertips

_A/N: I hadn't intended to continue this, but AnnaMorrison gave me excellent inspiration. Thank you!_

* * *

Sherlock had never been one for moral absolutes. He'd always thought rules were boring, especially the ones about stealing. Sometimes there was a good reason to take someone else's property; for example, if you needed the item but couldn't give the reason to the owner. _("John, might I borrow your gun for the next year or so? I'm going to fake my death and then travel the world killing all of Moriarty's men. And no, you can't come along." Even a sociopath can predict how that conversation would've gone.)_

Of course, this wasn't the only gun he had on his person; in addition to the doctor's Browning L9A1, he had a Sig Sauer 9 mm and a Smith & Wesson .22 so small that it could fit in a waistcoat pocket. When trying to take down the world's largest criminal empire, one needed to be heavily armed; however, it wasn't merely self-protection that had led him to take the Browning.

He recalled the morning he'd taken the gun, his last at 221B. He'd sneaked up to John's room while the doctor was out and slipped the gun out of a desk drawer, carefully rearranging everything such that its absence wouldn't be noticed until John wanted to use it.

There would be only one reason John would want to use the gun.

Now, crouched in an Omsk alley, the night air seeped into Sherlock's bones and damp settled on his cheap windbreaker. He stifled his shivering and relegated thoughts of the past to a faraway corner of his Mind Palace. Alertness was paramount. He tuned his ears to the approaching men, whose coded conversation was made harder to decipher due to the fact that they'd had several pints of vodka.

"The Premier League championship is next week."

"You think Shakter will win?"

The first man replied, "No, my money's on Irtysh. Don't discount Tobol, though. Heard they've a good team this year."

The second man asked, "What time is the opening match?"

"Four. Meet me at Vadim's?"

Behind a stack of crates, Sherlock rolled his eyes. _(Using Kazakhstani football terms to discuss human trafficking from Kazakhstan. Could this code be any more predictable? The organisation has gone downhill sharply without Moriarty at the helm.)_

The detective-turned-assassin decided it was time to act. He toppled the stack of crates over, and a strategically placed crate filled with rocks landed on the second man's head, knocking him out cold. The first man shouted expletives in Russian and drew his gun, but before he could fire, Sherlock whipped out the Browning and shot him in the chest. It took less than a minute for the man to bleed out.

The Englishman rifled through the dead man's pockets and appropriated his wallet. _(He won't need this. Might as well make it look like a mugging gone wrong. And now, for his accomplice…)_

Sherlock recognised the unconscious man immediately as Nikolai, head of the trafficking ring. His recently-deceased companion had, accompanied by a rotating cast of bodyguards, gone to rural areas in various countries and "recruited" young women for the business. Nikolai had employed the girls in ways Sherlock found unspeakably revolting. _(Sex is disgusting enough with willing, adult participants. I can't believe this man and I are even the same species.)_

He brought the unconscious man to his feet, then draped Nikolai's arm over his shoulders and dragged him down the alley to the motorcycle with sidecar that he'd stashed. From a distance, he looked as if he were helping a friend who'd had a few too many – a common occurrence with hard-drinking Siberians. He lowered the unconscious man into the sidecar, then hopped on the motorcycle and drove to the railway station.

Sherlock sent a text to one of Mycroft's people, who distracted the railroad security guard while Sherlock dragged Nikolai onto the tracks. As his associate argued loudly about the time of the next train to Novosibirsk, Sherlock slipped away from the tracks and back to his motorcycle. He nonchalantly smoked a cigarette while waiting for Vasilisa to leave the station.

When the train came through, Sherlock peered around the corner, saw the blood and the mess and heard the sirens. _(On to the next job._) He climbed into the sidecar and Vasilisa hopped onto the motorcycle. A grim smile on her face, she said, "I hear Nikolai's favourite book was _Anna Karenina_."

Sherlock snorted and absently ran his thumb over the Browning. _(That's the sort of thing John would say.)_

It would be a gloomy, frigid drive to Novosibirsk, and from there, roughly twenty hours of bumpy plane rides before he disembarked at Ho Chi Minh City. The detective quickly texted a mission update to his brother, then dozed off, hand protectively closed on the Browning.


	3. Pulling at My Skin

Mrs. Hudson ran her fingers over the violin case and delicately opened the lid. The violin was the only thing she'd taken out of the flat. She'd absconded with it during that first ghastly week, after Sherlock jumped and before John came back. Every day that week, she'd just gone up and sat for what seemed like hours. Everything was just as it had been and she kept expecting to hear the two of them barging up the stairs, huffing and giggling over their latest exploits.

All she'd heard was dust landing on the furniture.

She'd taken the violin back downstairs with her; she knew it had belonged to Sherlock's late mother, and it seemed a shame to let such a lovely instrument gather dust, even if she herself couldn't play it. Perhaps someday Mycroft would come and claim it – he had more right to it than she did, certainly.

The thought of the diplomat made her shake her head and sigh. She remembered the time she'd chided him for sending Sherlock into danger. He'd told her to shut up, and while Sherlock and John made him apologise, she could see from Sherlock's reaction that Mycroft knew too well that family was all we had in the end.

She wondered what Mycroft Holmes had now.

Gently, she began to rosin the bow. She hoped Mycroft would come by someday, if nothing else so that she could give him the violin and explain that she was sorry about his little brother, and she understood how he felt better than one might suspect. She'd given Sherlock the means to send her husband to the electric chair, and despite everything her husband had done to her and his victims, she hated herself for what she did to him. Hated having stooped to the murderer's level, hated being responsible for what happened. A decade later, she still had the odd nightmare about it.

Finished with the rosin, she gently returned the violin to its case and snapped the lid shut. Upstairs, she could hear John's steps creaking the floorboards, and she suspected his lady friend was up there with him. The early morning noise of Baker Street continued unabated, and since it was the first of the month, she could expect Mycroft's payment for Sherlock's half of the rent in her bank account. Soon, John and his lady friend would be off, and she'd have Mrs. Turner over for tea and gossip about the married ones.

_(Pick up and carry on. Sherlock wouldn't have anything else.)_


	4. Leave Me When I'm At My Worst

_A/N: This chapter is inspired by chapter 69 of sevenpercent's story "Got My Eye On You."_

* * *

Greg Lestrade trudged into his flat, hurled his keys into the bowl by the door and flopped on the couch in a manner more befitting a sullen teenager than a fortysomething police officer. He'd been allowed back on the force, but only in a desk job. _("Dispatch" must be Latin for "boredom.") _Months after Sherlock's death, the cases the consulting detective solved were still being re-examined, and under no circumstances was Lestrade to have any involvement, said the Chief Superintendent. _(John had the right idea, chinning that tosser. If I weren't one step away from being fired, I'd do the same.)_

Without casework, life was extraordinarily frustrating, and the only thing that kept him from using the walls of his flat for target practice was that his landlord wasn't nearly as tolerant of him as Mrs. Hudson had been Sherlock. Fed up with the world, he stomped over to his kitchen, threw some old Chinese takeaway in the microwave, and cracked open a Newcastle.

Dinner reheated, he switched on the telly and ate at the coffee table. _(Got to be some advantages to being single again.)_ There was nothing in particular he wanted to see; he just needed to hear something besides the neighbours bickering. Channel-surfing aimlessly, he came across a mindless film about hackers and began to watch. (_Seems a good soundtrack for getting blind drunk.)_

He hadn't expected to find inspiration in the film – or in anything else he did this evening – but one bit of dialogue stood out.

_Gabriel explained, "Have you ever heard of Harry Houdini? Well he wasn't like today's magicians who are only interested in television ratings. He was an artist. He could make an elephant disappear in the middle of a theater filled with people, and do you know how he did that? Misdirection."_

_Stanley said what Lestrade was thinking. "What the fuck are you talking about?"_

_Gabriel replied, "Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes."_

Suddenly, Greg remembered the night John Watson stared morosely into his pint and whispered, "He _told_ me to watch him."

The police officer muted the telly and scrambled to open his laptop. After he'd nicked Sherlock's phone from the roof, he'd had to return it to Mycroft's people, but luckily he'd been able to copy the information from the phone – including a recording of the last call made.

He hadn't listened to the call before. He preferred to think of Sherlock as he'd lived, not as he'd died, and listening to his suicide note felt like an invasion of both Sherlock and John's privacy. But now, he wondered if perhaps Sherlock had been trying to tell both of them something.

Lestrade sucked in a deep breath and hit play.

_On the recording, Sherlock is tearful as he speaks. "It's a trick. Just a magic trick."_

_John, ever defiant, says, "No. All right, stop it now."_

_Fear leaches through Sherlock's voice as he commands, "No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move."_

_"All right."_

_The command becomes a beg as he says, "Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?_

Lestrade pressed the pause button and sat back on the couch, stunned. He rewound the recording and listened again, and again, and once more, just to be certain.

_(Molly wouldn't let anyone see him. Mycroft's people cleared the scene immediately. There was no funeral.)_

The DI's jaw dropped as the puzzle pieces fell together. "You magnificent bastard," he breathed. "You bloody magnificent _bastard_!"

He would return, Greg knew. He knew it just as surely as he'd known that the skinny homeless teenager was brilliant and that the ex-army doctor would be good for Sherlock.

And when he returned, Greg would punch him – and then buy him dinner.

* * *

_A/N: The dialogue that inspires Lestrade is from the film "Swordfish." I can't really recommend the film, but if you're a Paul Oakenfold fan, the soundtrack is worth downloading. Sherlock and John's dialogue is from "The Reichenbach Fall." Thank you to Ariane DeVere for posting transcripts on her LiveJournal!_


	5. Feeling As If I've Been Cursed

Molly Hooper hated keeping secrets. She knew she wasn't a very good actress, and that knowledge just made her more nervous, which made her even more likely to give a secret away. The fact that four people would die if this secret got out only increased her terror (and made her a worse liar). It was easiest just to avoid the people she had to lie to and only deal with those who weren't affected by the secret, or the only other person who knew the truth.

When Sherlock came to her that night in the lab, she'd known that whatever he was about to ask of her would not be easy, but she resolved that she would do it. She had never let him down before and she was not going to start now, but she'd had no idea just how arduous this would be.

Those first few days were the worst, constantly afraid that one of Moriarty's people knew he was at her flat, panicking at every small sound in the night – or the day. After he left the country she breathed a bit easier, but only just. Out of the corner of her eye, she'd think she saw John or Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson and the guilt would be written all over her face and the jig would be up and Moriarty's men would come and horrors beyond description would befall all of them.

Living like that was, needless to say, exhausting. She forced herself to stop looking for them, firmly reminded herself that they had no reason to come to Bart's anymore (nor would they want to, after what happened), and that they were suffering too. She also reminded herself that she had promised to look after them, and that this was the one thing she could do for Sherlock that no one else could. Mycroft could provide all the financial and tactical support Sherlock would ever need, but he was _persona non grata _at Baker Street and anywhere else Sherlock's friends gathered. His security cameras would only show so much; face-to-face observation was needed to confirm everyone's well-being.

And so, two months after the detective fell, the pathologist raised a trembling hand and knocked on the door of Mrs. Hudson's flat. The elderly lady opened the door with a warm smile and a hug and then ushered Molly into her kitchen. At the table were tea, scones, clotted cream, and… oh God.

John Watson.

"John!" Molly said, trying not to sound too surprised. "I, er, wasn't expecting you!"

The doctor smiled and shook Molly's hand. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

_(Deep breath. You can't back out now; they'll get suspicious.)_ "Er, yes," she replied lamely. "Um… how have you been?"

The doctor's smile faded as they took their seats. Molly studied the new lines in his face, the hollowness in his cheeks, and the gray hairs that she was certain he hadn't had before. _(I did this to him.)_ She pushed back the wave of nausea that swept over her and took a sip of tea.

"As well as can be expected," John said as Mrs. Hudson clucked sympathetically. "Working at the A&E has been good; keeps me busy. What about you?"

Molly quickly began telling them everything she could think of to avoid the topic of Sherlock – her coworkers' squabbles, her cat's habit of fighting his tail and her brother's play. She enquired after Mrs. Hudson's nieces and nephew and John's sister. Everything was going fine until Mrs. Hudson asked a question that made Molly's heart skip a beat.

"Have either of you seen that nice DI Lestrade lately?"

_(Oh God. If we're discussing him, it won't be long before we get to Sherlock.) _

John jumped in. "Yeah, watched the rugby match with him last week. Still on dispatch, but seems to be taking it better."

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "It was indecent, what they did to him and Sherlock! I will never understand why anyone believed that reporter!"

A black cloud crossed John's face and his left fist clenched. Mrs. Hudson immediately apologised, but the damage had been done. The secret felt like an ocean liner hanging from Molly's neck, preventing her from looking the doctor in the eye. Noticing the time, she made an excuse about meeting someone for dinner and bade goodbye to the doctor and the lady.

Once she returned home, she typed up all that she'd learned from John and Mrs. Hudson and emailed it to an address that no one would recognize. She spent the rest of the evening writing her latest research paper and reading medical journals, which chased thoughts of the afternoon out of her head temporarily.

The last thing she saw before fell asleep that night was John Watson's haggard face.


	6. Bitter Cold Within

Mycroft Holmes stared out the rear window of Holmes Manor, a snifter of brandy in one hand and a burn phone in the other. The sun was almost set and the grounds were in shadow, the heat of the day finally giving way to a cool summer night. From the second-floor library, he could see much of the estate – the hills where Father hunted, Mummy's former flower gardens, the stream where he waded when he was very small.

This evening, his gaze was fixed on one landmark: the enormous oak tree a short distance from the Manor. Long ago, a treehouse had rested in its branches; Mummy had commissioned it when Mycroft was four, in hopes that it would encourage her bookish son to get a little fresh air. _(She was a bit disappointed when I only went there to read.)_ It would take seven years for the treehouse to receive the use Mummy had expected. A little boy with dark curls had pretended the treehouse was his pirate ship and dragged his big brother into the role of the Royal Navy – the villain of his stories.

That little boy was now a man, and one year ago today he jumped off the roof of St. Bart's. His friends thought him dead, but his big brother knew the truth. _(Most brothers would develop a closeness when collaborating in such a manner. Sherlock and I have remained at arm's length from each other.)_

In a way, the man now had what he'd wanted as a boy – a nomadic life without rules or attachments, destroying anyone who got between him and his goal. And then as now, his big brother had been the villain.

The burn phone buzzed and Mycroft put down his brandy. He texted a reply to Sherlock's mission update, then returned the phone to a hidden pocket of his jacket and picked up the brandy again. Only one more cell remained in Moriarty's web; if all went according to plan, Sherlock would be home for Bonfire Night.*

What would become of them after Sherlock's return? It seemed unlikely that the brothers' relationship would return to normal (or what passes for normal when one is a Holmes). Mycroft had done everything he could to assist Sherlock in his quest, but the fact remained that Sherlock would never have needed to fake his death, leave the work and his friends, and circumnavigate the globe hunting Moriarty's men if Mycroft hadn't made a colossal mistake.

The diplomat caught a glimpse of his father's picture on the mantle, and a shiver ran up his spine. The night he betrayed Sherlock, he'd come home and sank into the chair in what used to be Father's study. He could almost hear Father telling him he'd chosen wisely, that it was better to sacrifice Sherlock than the British nation, that he understood, Sherlock would someday understand, that it was all fine.

When Mycroft was a young man, Father's praise, taciturn though it may have been, was music to his ears. After Father died, he still found satisfaction in the idea that the older man might be proud of his career, even as he came to understand that Father's failures were more numerous than his successes.

When he betrayed his brother, imagining Father's approval turned Mycroft's stomach. He drank – not his usual brandy, but Glenlivet whiskey – until he needed so much effort to focus his eyes that he could no longer concentrate on anything else. The following morning, the pounding in his head drowned out his memories of the previous day, and by the time the hangover subsided, work once again consumed all his energy.

This night, whiskey wasn't an option; he had a 7:00 AM flight to Seoul, and he could never go to work with a hangover. Instead, he finished his brandy and went to bed. After he turned out the light, Mycroft placed his ring _(Father's ring) _on the bedside table. Moonlight glinted off of it, a taunting reminder that he became someone he hoped he'd never be.

* * *

_*Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, takes place on November 5__th__ and celebrates the thwarting of a plot to blow up the House of Lords and kill King James I. Some of the Setlock photos suggest that Sherlock returns on or just before this holiday._

_For more of my take on Mycroft's relationship with Father, read my story "One Ring to Bind Him."_


End file.
